Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 - June
10, 1967) was an American American actor who appeared in over eighty films from the 1930s
through the 1960s.
He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of a truck salesman. At the beginning of
World War I he left school to enlist in the Navy, but remained in Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia
throughout the war. Afterwards he attended Ripon College where he appeared in a play entitled,
The Truth, and decided on acting as a career. In the early 1920s he attended the Academy of
Dramatic Arts in New York. He played minor stock parts, and supported himself with jobs as
bellhop, salesman, and janitor.
In 1923 he married Louise Treadwell, and they had two children, John and Susanna. In 1932,
director John Ford saw him in the play, The Last Mile and signed him to do Up the
River for Fox Pictures. Shortly after that he and his family moved to Hollywood, where
he made 16 films in 3 years. In 1935 he signed with MGM and won the Oscar for best actor
two years in a row for Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938). He was
nominated for San Francisco (1936), Father of the Bride (1950), Bad Day at
Black rock (1955), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960),
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).
In 1942 he began a relationship with Katharine Hepburn. Though estranged from his wife, Louise,
they were both devout Catholics and never divorced. He and Hepburn continued to live together
throughout his life, and made nine films together.
Although Tracy was tormented by alcoholism and insomnia all his life, it never seemed to
affect his career. Thirty years after his death, Tracy is still considered by many to be the
most skillful actor of his time. He could portray the hero, the villain, or the comedian, and
make the audience believe he truly was the character he played. A few weeks after making his
last movie, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967), with Hepburn, he died from a heart attack.
He is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California.
Quotes:
"Come to work on time, know your lines and don't bump into the other actors."
On drinking: "Hell, I used to take two-week lunch hours!"
"I couldn't be a director because I couldn't put up with the actors. I don't have the patience.
Why, I'd probably kill the actors. Not to mention some of the beautiful actresses."
This article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire
work (including additions) remains under this license. See
http://www.gnu.org/
copyleft/fdl.html
for details. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Spencer Tracy
", which you can find
at http://www.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Spencer_Tracy
|